


Prima Donnas of the Gutter

by romanticalgirl



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Midtown, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this is the scene, then they're the stars</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prima Donnas of the Gutter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Alternative Lineups Ficathon](http://romanticalgirl.livejournal.com/tag/alternate%20lineups). Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

  
Gabe doesn’t actually know the kid in the skin-tight Anthrax shirt and the glasses, but he’s seen him around at enough shows and clubs to know he’s a regular on the scene. He obviously knows people, since it’s clear that he’s younger than Gabe but still manages to get into the 21+ crowds. Gabe doesn’t pay him much mind, usually too busy up on stage or behind the turntable to note much more than over-exposed breasts or alcohol being offered to him. Still, the kid moves silkily despite his gangly long limbs. When he gets into the music, his body flows with it, losing himself somewhere else. Gabe’s familiar with somewhere else. He’s a frequent visitor.

When he’s not on the floor, the kid is stiff as a board, watching from the sidelines and drinking a Coke through a purple straw, his neon bright wristband warning everyone that he’s too young to drink and therefore ripe for seduction with slipped sips of alcohol. Gabe starts watching him and realizes the kid doesn’t ever fall for it, leaving his own drink behind if it’s been tampered with. It takes Gabe a little bit longer to realize the kid’s watching him.

**

In his mind, the first time someone says ‘You’re Gabe Saporta’, it’s someone like Madonna who’s fucking famous, or someone like Salma Hayek who’s really fucking hot. Instead it’s the kid in the skin-tight Anthrax shirt, only this time it’s Skid Row.

“Skid Row? _Really_?”

“Sebastian Bach is an unparalleled genius of our time.”

Gabe looks at the solemn gaze of this kid, blinking his eyelashes behind the glasses perched on the end of his nose, not a sign of a fucking smile on his face. “You’re fucking high, kid.”

“No. But I know a guy.” He sticks out his hand like it’s a formal introduction. “Mikey Way.” He stands there, so fucking earnest, until Gabe actually reaches out and shakes his fucking hand. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Gabe disengages his hand and keeps staring at this kid. He’s all bones and angles and tufts of hair everywhere, and he looks more like a baby bird dropped out of his nest than a scene kid except for the skin tight pants and the leather band around his wrist. “Did you…want something?”

“What? Yes. Oh. Yeah.” He doesn’t blush or stammer, but he’s clearly thrown by Gabe’s question. “I want you to listen to something.”

Gabe sighs and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m the wrong person, dude, sorry. I got no contacts. I got no pull. Not gonna front you, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.” His head snaps up and he looks at Gabe, and there’s some steely determination in his eyes. Gabe cocks an eyebrow up and Mikey shrugs, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and hunching over. “You DJ three nights a week.”

“Yeah.” Gabe shrugs. “When I’m in town.”

“So you know what’s good. You know what people want to hear.” He keeps staring at Gabe, daring him to argue. “So I want you to listen to something. And if you like it, maybe you can play it.” He hands Gabe a tape – a fucking _cassette tape_ \- and closes Gabe’s hand around it. “And if you don’t, then you don’t.”

**

Gabe stares at the tape, turning it over and over in his hand. It’s a plain black cassette – Memorex – and there’s no label or writing on it at all. The case just has numbers, all written in a precise hand, but no words to go with them. There are thirteen numbers, but two of them are crossed out with question marks beside the lines intersecting the numbers. He has obligations, places to be and people he needs to talk to, but it’s been three days and everywhere he goes, he sees this fucking tape like he’s in an episode of the _Twilight Zone_.

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fuck.” He slams the case down on the table and goes over to his system, grumbling as he hits the eject button. He hasn’t played a cassette in ages, and he’s not even sure the damn thing still works, but he slides the tape in anyway, adjusts the equalizer and presses play.

**

Gabe’s been in a van with six other guys for three weeks, so the last thing he wants is someone standing at his door, _especially_ another guy. Guys stink. _He_ stinks. He smells like feet and sweat and he feels like he showered in spit. He is absolutely not in the mood for baby scene kids to look at him with unblinking eyes and ask his opinion on shit. “Go away.”

“I brought you something.”

He hands Gabe a bag with a battered copy of _Fear and Trembling_ by Kierkegaard as well as a taped together copy of Jeremy Leven’s _Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S._. Gabe’s read both. He _owns_ both, so it’s kind of strange to see them in the bag. “Um. Thanks?”

“They made me think of you.” Mikey shoves his hands in the pockets of his too-small jean jacket. “See ya.”

Gabe stares at the books for a while and then looks up at Mikey. “You want to come up?”

Mikey nods once and Gabe moves into the building, taking the stairs two at a time up to the fourth floor and his rat hole of an apartment. Mikey’s pace is far more sedate, but Gabe just figures Mikey hasn’t been crammed in the back seat of a van with a bass, half a drum kit and four boxes of merch for the last seventeen hours. He unlocks the door and starts stripping off clothes before he’s even completely inside, leaving a trail to the bathroom. He hasn’t had a shower in almost a week, and he wants to scrape off the layer of dirt and grime until he gets to the parts underneath that are human.

Mikey doesn’t comment, and Gabe hears the apartment door close before he turns on the shower spray, wincing at the ice cold water that spits at him. He climbs in when it reaches tepid and by the time he’s shampooing his hair for the third time, the water’s actually warm. The other tenants will hate him in the morning when he’s used all the hot water up, but he really doesn’t give a shit about any of them as the water sluices down his body and washes layers of filth away.

It’s starting to cycle back to cold when Gabe finally turns it off, pushing back the plastic curtain and blinking water out of his eyes to stare at Mikey, who’s perched precariously on the edge of the pedestal sink that wasn’t made to hold baby scenesters. “This is the bathroom.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re doing it wrong.” He grabs a towel and wraps it around his waist and then wraps another one around his hair. He leaves Mikey behind again, disappearing into the darkness that is his bedroom. The rest of his house or his life might be a mess, but his clothes are neat and orderly, and he doesn’t need the light to dress in fresh boxers and a t-shirt that hasn’t seen the inside of a van.

When he looks up again, Mikey’s standing in the doorway, backlit by the bathroom light. “You’re like one of those creepy little kids in _Village of the Damned_.”

“I’m not blond, blue-eyed or British.”

Gabe scrubs at his hair with the towel and then drapes it over his shoulders, feeling the dampness sinking into his clean shirt. Mikey’s weird. There’s no doubt about that. He’s also something else altogether. “Why’d you pick those books?”

“They seemed like you.”

“I seem like some sort of religious philosopher caught in an undeniable web of my own self-importance?” There’s silence, and Gabe realizes Mikey doesn’t have to say a word to be heard. His silences speak fucking volumes. “Yeah. Okay. You’re kind of right. You want to play video games?”

“Or we could make out.”

Gabe contemplates him for a long time. Mikey’s weird looking, but that doesn’t make him not _good_ looking, and he’s got gorgeous eyes and a mouth that looks ripe for kissing. “It’s not going to make me play your record.”

Mikey smiles and it’s the stupidest, goofiest grin Gabe’s ever seen in his entire life. “The record’ll make it on its own. I was just using it to meet you.”

“You’ve got this all fucking backwards, kid.” Gabe grins as well and reaches out, snagging Mikey’s hand and pulling him into the bedroom. “It’s kind of fucking refreshing.”

**

Mikey’s completely at ease in his skin, moving with Gabe’s every touch. The trip to the bed doesn’t take long, and Mikey’s half out of his clothes by the time they get there. Gabe shucks out of his t-shirt and then follows Mikey down onto the mattress, bodies and mouths fitting together.

As stoic as Mikey has seemed every time Gabe’s met him, he’s responsive as hell when Gabe kisses him, hungry little noises that work their way under Gabe’s skin and against his nerve endings. Mikey’s demanding, persistent as his hands slide up Gabe’s back to his shoulders and then down to his ass, matching the pressure of his touch with the upward thrust of his body.

“Fuck,” Gabe gasps, the sound trapped between them, his hips jerking forward to collide with Mikey’s. Mikey arches upward, sinuous and languid, though the heavy pulse of his cock against Gabe’s is more insistent. “Fuck.”

“Okay,” Mikey agrees, pushing Gabe back so that he can turn over, his elbows on the bed and his ass in the air, like an invitation. Gabe blinks and then reaches out, rubbing his palms over the curve of skin. Mikey reaches over, digging lube and condoms out of Gabe’s nightstand like he owns the place, then tosses the condoms to Gabe before coating two of his own fingers in the lube.

“What are you…” Gabe breaks off as Mikey reaches back, easing one of his fingers into his own ass.

“Encouraging you.”

Gabe watches for a moment, following the slow thrust of Mikey’s finger, then grabs the lube and condom, prepping himself while Mikey works another finger in. “Fuck,” he whispers under his breath, wondering briefly when his life became so surreal.

He thrusts in slowly, filling Mikey by inches, listening to the rough, hot sounds Mikey doesn’t quite manage to bury in Gabe’s pillow. Mikey is tight and hot around him, and Gabe pushes deeper, finding a steady, hard rhythm and grasping Mikey’s hips hard enough to leave dark red marks on his pale skin.

Gabe groans against Mikey’s spine, slipping one hand down to wrap around Mikey’s dick, stroking it as his hips rock against Mikey’s ass, driving him deeper inside, pushing Mikey harder into his fist.

Mikey sinks his teeth into his arm, his body clenching around Gabe. Gabe squeezes Mikey’s cock slightly, feeling the stuttered pulse as he comes. His body tightens even more and Gabe has to gasp, thrusting as deep as he can and coming as well.

Mikey’s sprawled face down on Gabe’s bed when Gabe comes back from cleaning up in the bathroom. The comforter is thrown down to the floor at the foot of the bed, his one concession to the wet spot. Gabe glances at the comforter and then at Mikey. The sheet is low across his bare back, clinging to the curve of his ass. His eyes are closed, lashes dark against his flushed cheeks, a bright red bite mark marring his forearm.

Shaking his head, Gabe climbs in the bed as well. “I just spent six weeks sleeping with a bunch of guys in a van. Sharing my bed was not in the plans for tonight.”

“Mmm.” Mikey shifts, skin and muscle and bone languid on the sheets. “You could go sleep on the couch.”

He can’t help laughing. “Who the hell do you think you are, kid?”

Mikey opens one eye and smiles at him. “I’m Mikey fucking Way.”

“Yeah.” Gabe gives in and tugs the covers over both of them. “You sure are.

**

Gabe’s eating dry cereal, watching Mikey prowl around the apartment while they wait for Mikey’s ride.

“I can’t believe you don’t have coffee.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t shop for your unexpected stay.”

Mikey pops open the cassette player and pulls out the Memorex tape. “Next time have coffee.” He pockets the tape and smiles at Gabe.

“What makes you so sure there’s going to be a next time.” He spoons more Fruit Loops into his mouth. “I thought you gave that to me.”

“It’s our only copy. Gerard wants it back.”

“It’s your…and you…” Gabe shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

“I never kid about music.” He glances out the window as a car horn honks. “Coffee next time. The good stuff. And don’t worry. I’ll get you another copy.” Mikey grins again, the ridiculousness of it made sharper by the fact that it’s obviously rare. “Hell, who knows? Maybe I’ll even thank you in the liner notes.”  



End file.
